Meeting our efficiency targets

Review by Sir Peter Gershon

In the report ''Releasing resources for the frontline'' published in July 2004, the government set an efficiency target for the whole of the public sector (£20bn). Local government has been asked to contribute £6.45bn of this total (including schools and police) over the three years to 2007/08. This equates to 7.5% off the 2004/05 baseline expenditure.

Where the savings can be made

As the title suggests the aim is to identify resources that can be reinvested in the front line or used to hold down council tax. The review identified scope for significant efficiencies in the following areas:

• Procurement
• Back office (ie corporate support services)
• Transactional services (like council tax and housing benefits)
• Productive time (actions that increase productivity)
• Policy, funding and regulation (streamlining for both the public and private sectors including local area agreements)

Efficiency targets for Wycombe District Council

A total target has been set of £2.41m. We are required to publish our efficiency plans (forward look) each year and report our actual savings to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG).

The efficiency savings fall into two broad areas "cashable savings" and "non cashable savings". Cashable savings release money from services which can either be reinvested in other services or used to reduced the level of council tax increase. An authority is also allowed to count non-cashable savings, which are largely productivity gains, which do not release cash. Therefore these cannot be used to reduce future council tax increases or invested in other services.

At the end of 2007/08 we had achieved total recurring efficiency gains of £3.178m (of which £2.85m cashable), against our target of £2.41m.

WDC's efficiency performance

Efficiency gains	2004/05 £'000's	2005/06 £'000's	2006/07 £'000's	2007/08 £'000's
Government target	0	760	1,607	2,410
Actual performance achieved	260	1,326	2,154	3,178
% achieved (cumulative)	n/a	4.36%	6.70%	9.89%

*Although the first year of the efficiency programme is 2005/06, a concession applied for 2004/05, allowing any recurring efficiency gains arising in that year to be counted towards the three year target. These savings continued through to 31 March 2008.